Category: Education Theory

April 21, 2016 Education Theory, Encouragement, Writing Post a Comment

Dyslexia and the Gift of Neurodiversity

I have a fundamental belief that each of us is a unique creation with strengths and weaknesses that equip us for our individual mission in this life. I have struggled so much with the idea of “learning disabilities” because I feel a hyper-focus on a person’s weaknesses can overshadow the development of that person’s gifts.

It makes sense to me that the human species benefits from the fact that no two humans are the same. Some people are strong. Some are fast. Some are amazing artists. Some are compassionate healers. Some are great engineers. Few people are all of those things.

Neurodiversity, that is the differences between our brains that make it easier for one person to learn math and for another to learn to read, is an evolutionary benefit for us humans. It allows us to excel at group problem solving. Because we each have a unique brain, we each have a unique way of approaching a problem and unique abilities to use in solving a problem. It’s this great diversity of brains that has allowed humans to produce electricity, build skyscrapers, write life-transforming literature, create heart-breaking works of art, create the internet, and use the internet for an unbelievably diverse multitude of functions.

Harper Lee

Our society has come to worship at the altar of literacy. It is the one thing we must all master and love. Don’t get me wrong, I love reading and writing. I’m a reader. And a writer. I believe the ability to read well and write competently are skills that every person must acquire to live a constructive and fulfilling life in our society.

I also believe that the over attention given to these pursuits is damaging to some children. The idea that every child should love reading and writing just doesn’t gel with me. While we agree that every adult should be able to perform basic math operations, we don’t insist that every child should love solving equations in their free time. Though there are certainly those who do.

Michelangelo

So what does this mean if your child struggles to read? It means that you should help him learn to read! It also means that you shouldn’t force him to spend an inordinate amount of time struggling to read and write to the exclusion of pursuing and developing his natural gifts.

It means you should help your child see his great contribution to the neurodiversity of the amazing human race. Help him to see that he has unique strengths and weaknesses just like everyone else. Help him discover what his strengths are, and help him to flourish in those strengths. Help him to overcome his weaknesses so that they don’t interfere with the expression of his strengths. Whatever you do, don’t laser focus on his weaknesses and ignore his strengths.

Marie Curie

There are ways of helping children who struggle to learn to read. We should continue to discover and employ these tools. But, and I know this is sacrilege in many circles, I don’t believe the ultimate goal is creating a child who loves to read. I believe the ultimate goal is a child who loves to learn, who knows and can express his gifts, and can employ reading and writing as tools toward that end.

September 17, 2014 Education Theory, Our Homeschool, Parenting, The Joys of Boys Post a Comment

Using Incentives in Your Homeschool

Yesterday was an agonizing day. I had a certain amount of work I wanted my oldest to achieve. Grueling assignments such as writing 6 sentences and completing a 10 minute spelling lesson. Finishing 5 problems on Khan Academy. You know, things that clearly no reasonable person would ask a 4th grader to do.

There was drama. There were tears. There was eye rolling and yelling. There were threats. And there was googling of schools for kids with ADD.

And I found the school. And if we started eating ramen and selling our blood, we might be able to afford the school.

But I thought, if this school can do it, then it can be done. There are methods they use that I can learn too, right?

I know from my history with this child that he responds exceedingly well to incentives. He used to chew on his shirt. Constantly. I told him if he went three weeks without chewing on his shirt, he could have the Lego Movie video game for the XBox. He never chewed on his shirt again. It was infuriatingly simple. If it was that easy for him to stop, why didn’t he just stop before?

Smart But Scattered, a great book on how to help kids with executive functioning challenges, had taught me that working for incentives is actually an executive functioning strength that my son has. If the price is right, can do just about anything.

Here’s the thing. I HATE incentives. I feel like if you can do something, you should just do it because it’s the right thing to do. It seems to me, that if you can do something for an incentive, then you can do it, and you should do it without a reward.

But apparently, doing the right thing, or just getting it done, is not enough of an incentive for my son to leave behind the incredibly exciting world in his imagination to write 6 sentences about the lost colony of Roanoke. Because sitting in a chair all day really isn’t torture for him. His mind is a fascinating place to be, and it keeps him perfectly well entertained.

This morning he woke up asking what he could do to earn more money. He has finally developed an appreciation for all of the useless crap amazing treasures money can buy him. Like machetes with fake blood and nerf guns and large books from the thrift store that he can turn into secret hiding spots. This is great because when a kid wants money, a parent can generally get him to do things he might not otherwise do willingly.

I told him I’d think about it. I’m a bit of a miser, and I don’t want to just go handing money out like some kind of money fairy or something. I mean, it doesn’t grow on trees now, does it?

It wasn’t long before I’d asked him to do something and he gave me attitude about it. Inspiration. “Every time I have to ask you to do something more than once, you owe me a quarter.”

Ha! See? I’m making money this way, not handing it out.

Later, we were doing school work and he started whining “It’s too hard!” Boom. “Every time you whine about school work, you owe me a quarter.”

I ran down to the basement and grabbed a bag of poker chips and two paper cups. I wrote “Henry” on one of them and “Mom” on the other. I filled the “Henry” cup with 20 poker chips – each worth a quarter. I took two quarters for his earlier infractions.

Because I’ve been trained in such things I know that a strictly punitive system is not likely to be effective for long. So I started offering incentives. “If you write 4 sentences before I come back downstairs, I’ll give you a quarter.” Because I’m a mean mom, I am incapable of a strictly rewards based system. So along with the carrot I proffered a stick. “If you haven’t written at least 2, you owe me a quarter.”

I told him, “Each chip is a quarter. There are five dollars worth of chips in here. You can gain and lose them based on your behavior, and I will pay you on Sunday. Each Monday morning you’ll start out with 20 new chips.” And that, ladies and gentleman, is a glowing example of my stellar making-it-up-as-I-go-along parenting. 

But you know what? He finished everything I wanted him to do by noon. Yesterday, we didn’t finish until five o’clock. That’s right, I bought five hours of extra time with my system. Not bad for 5 bucks.

I will admit, though, that I’m still uncomfortable with the system. I have learned repeatedly that this sort of thing is super effective for my son, but I’ve also read enough Alfie Kohn to feel that this sort of “manipulation” is somehow damaging to my son or to our relationship.

And so I struggle between what I desperately want to believe philosophically, and what I see creates peace and harmony and a happy son in reality.

I’m curious. Have any of you have had success with using incentives in your homeschool? Did it create any unintended consequences that caused problems down the line?

August 9, 2014 Book Reviews: Books for Parents, Education Theory, Encouragement, General, Our Homeschool, Schedules and Routines 4 Comments

Why you should consider a schedule for your homeschool

If you know me or have followed my blog at all, you know that I have always tended toward a relaxed, unschool-ish, laissez-faire approach to my kids’ education. You probably also know that I have flirted with curriculum on and off, and that part of me has always longed for a more predictable routine and, yes, even schedule.

At the beginning of last year I had big plans. I made a really impressive Excel spreadsheet that laid out our week for us from 7am to 8pm each day. I scheduled 20 minutes for phonics, 20 minutes for math, etc. It all looked so nice on paper. And parts of it did go smoothly. The kids loved morning recess. Though I usually wanted to use that time to do a few chores.

We gave it the good college try for about a month before I threw in the towel and decided that our homeschool schedule now consisted of a math lesson and some handwriting. Eventually I just insisted on math. And then there was the day it took us two hours of screaming and crying to get through a Saxon math lesson. I should note that only my oldest was required to do school. The other two kids could do whatever they wanted. Which usually involved staring at a screen.

Despite my greatest hopes and desires, most days simply deteriorated into either tears or screens or both. I didn’t feel good about what we were doing, but I didn’t have the energy to change course. “You guys want to play a game? Or read a book? Or go for a walk?” was usually met with “Nah. I’m watching My Little Pony. Or Pokemon. Or Thomas the Train.” And so I spent a little more time scrolling through Facebook.

This isn’t how I imagined homeschooling would be. I imagined science experiments and read alouds and nature walks. And we did those things. We did a lot of great stuff and learned a lot. My kids even learned stuff from My Little Pony and Pokemon and Thomas the Train. I’m not saying they didn’t.

But on those days when we had no plan – no field trip, no co-op, no park days, no play-dates, no science club – we all felt at loose ends. I wanted, as my friend Clea wrote so eloquently, to put the “home” back in our homeschool.

And then a woman whom I like and admire on our local Catholic homeschooling board recommended the book Managers of Their Homes. She described her homeschooling days, and it sounded much closer to my dreams for my family. Now, I know we should keep our eyes on our own paper. I know that what works for her and her 7 girls won’t work for me and my motley crew, but the book promised to help me create a custom schedule for my family.

So with a bit of fear and trepidation, I bought it. And I read it. Slowly. And prayerfully. I watched my anxiety ebb and flow as I processed the lessons. And I began to see the wisdom and the peace of having a predictable daily routine.

What’s great about this book (and I’m not an affiliate so I’m not trying to sell you anything here) is that it really baby steps you through it. It has you think about all of the things you want to fit into your day for yourself and each of your children. It has you prioritize. And it asks you to be realistic about how much time there is in a day. It reminds you that God does not give you more to do than you can fit into the 24 hours in a day He gives you. So if you don’t have enough time, you’re not following God’s plan for you. That one was hard to stomach. My schedules hand’t worked in the past because I didn’t start in the right place – with God’s plan for my family and with respect for the limits on my time.

As I was reading Managers of Their Homes, I was also reading Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie (again, not an affiliate). There is much wisdom and gentleness in this book. One of major points was that each interruption to our schedules is a visit from Our Lord. Each time a child needs us to tie a shoe or wipe a bottom or “look at a really cool block tower I just built,” it is Jesus asking us to look up from our own agenda and meet Him in our day.

Reading these two books together really pushed me to think about finding the balance between having a predictable routine and schedule on the one hand, and being a slave to my planner and the clock on the other.

I confess that this is never a line I have walked well. I have some OCD tendencies, am prone to anxiety, like to have everything “under control,” and can become a cruel task master when trying to follow a plan. I tend to waffle between anal-retentive-Type-A-crazy-woman and it-can’t-be-perfect-so-I-give-up-anything-goes sloth.

It has been a constant spiritual battle for me to come to a place where I believe I have a reasonable chance – with much prayer and God’s continued out-pouring of grace – to approach a plan like this without making myself crazy or my family resentful.

If you’d like some help getting started with thinking about a schedule/routine that will work for you and your family, I’d love to walk you through the process and share what I’ve learned. Check out my Homeschool Consulting page for more information on working with me. It is always my goal to encourage and inspire you on your homeschooling journey.

August 7, 2013 Education Theory, Rethinking the 3 R's Post a Comment

Teaching with Real Experiences: Part 4 in the Three R’s Series

“If we taught babies to talk as most skills are taught in school, they would memorize lists of sounds in a predetermined order and practice them alone in a closet.”  Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford Graduate School of Education

In the first few posts of this series, we talked about taking a relaxed approach to homeschooling and focusing on our relationships with our children, and our children’s relationships to the materialthey are learning. Now we’re going to look at the final “R” in the series: real experiences.

I think one of the best things about homeschooling is the ability to take advantage of the learning opportunities that naturally occur  in daily life. The kinds of things that are unplanned, but leave an impression on kids because they come from their very own lives and aren’t imposed on them by on an external curriculum. I’ll share a few recent experiences from my own life to illustrate the point.

We’ve been spending a lot of time at parks this summer. We are blessed where we live with an abundance of amazing parks. One of our favorites has a creek with water just deep enough for wading and splashing and catching crawdads (crayfish, crawfish, mud bugs, whatever you like to call them), but not deep enough to have to worry too much about a 2 year old going under.

We’ve been meeting some friends there once a week to let the kids run wild while the mamas chat under a tree. These are some of my favorite times as a mom and as a homeschooler. As I watch the kids run up and down the hills, gather in little groups to chat or play with trucks, and engage in crazy, disgusting antics such as algae fights, my heart feels so content as the phrase “magical childhood” echoes in my mind. 

As I watch, I love to see the learning that is going on – completely spontaneously.

Last week, I was amused as my oldest started bringing me random “treasures” he was digging out of the mud – an old hand weight, a hinge, a glass bottle (not a beer bottle oddly enough), an enormous bolt, a metal pipe. I had to chuckle to myself. We’re starting school in a couple of weeks and I have a huge archaeology unit planned. I’m so thankful for this spontaneous archaeological dig my son conducted, because I know it will be way more meaningful to him than anything I plan.

I seized the opportunity to think like an archaeologist. I asked him how he thought those things ended up there. How long might they have been there? What guesses can we make about what’s happened in and around the creek based on the small clues we found? I didn’t force the conversation. I just wondered with him about the really cool stuff he’d found. (And because, at times, I’m a really awesome mom, I let him bring the mud and algae encrusted treasures back home to display on our “nature shelves.”)

As our visit to the park reached the 3 hour mark, the boys started getting, um, daring. They started dropping rocks in the creek. Then they started throwing rocks in the creek. Then they started trying to find the biggest rocks they could lift to drop from the bridge. Then they started speculating. If it were possible for them to lift that largest rock there and drop it from the bridge, would the splash it created empty the creek? There was some discussion (that I couldn’t really follow) that the rock would actually be too big to make a splash because it was taller than the creek was deep. This is real scientific speculation. Kids do this all the time.

Again this morning, we were at a park. This one is walking distance from our home and doesn’t have the great creek feature of the other park. It was a spontaneous trip, and we took the neighbor boy along with us. It was a very hot day after some heavy rains, and so the shady sandbox beckoned. The sand was just wet enough to make some great structures.

The neighbor boy wanted to show us how he and his friends dig tunnels in the sand at school.

I didn’t have my camera with me, but the tunnels were similar to this one:

picture from Brimful Curiosities

Ours were a little different, more of a tunnel under ground than through a hill, but you get the general idea.

Anyway, to facilitate a bit of scientific thinking, I wondered aloud, “why doesn’t it collapse?” Now we didn’t necessarily answer that question, but we asked it. And they thought about it. And that’s science. And then they started seeing how close together they could dig the tunnels without them collapsing. And we noticed that they looked like prairie dog holes.  And then we remembered the chipmunk colonies we’d seen while camping.

This is a lot of science from two trips to the park. And none of it was premeditated.

When we know what we’re looking for, we can see the learning taking place in the everyday activities of our children. In my next posts, I’ll show you how to see this learning through real experiences for each of the traditional  3 R’s  – reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic.

To read the other posts in this series:

Part 1: Relax

Part 2: Learning Based on Relationships

Part 3: Your Child’s Relationship to the Material

July 25, 2013 Education Theory, Rethinking the 3 R's Post a Comment

Making Lessons Meaningful: Part 3 in the Three R’s Series

climbtree

“Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.” – Leonardo da Vinci

In the first two posts in this series we looked at taking a relaxed approach to homeschooling in the early grades and examined the role of our relationships with our children in the learning process. In this third installation of Rethinking the Three R’s, we’ll look at your child’s relationship to the material he is learning.

Passion and Desire

One of the most wonderful things about homeschooling is the ability to tailor an education to the desires and passions of your children. If your 6-year-old  is enthralled by the inner workings of the human body, he doesn’t have to wait for high school to plunge deeply into anatomy. If your 4-year-old is crazy about Ancient Egypt, she doesn’t have to wait until the school’s curriculum says it’s time to study it.

True, parents whose kids attend school can, and often do, supplement their children’s learning at home in order to help them pursue their special interests. But when your kids are home with you full time, you have the luxury to go deep into an area of study without having to also follow someone else’s agenda.

We all know instinctively that when we are interested in something, we retain that information so much better than when we are being forced to learn something simply because someone else thinks we should. We also know that not everyone is equally gifted in all areas.

One of our most important roles as parents is to help our children discover their God given gifts and talents and to help them develop these in order to live the life God created them to live.

When you are planning your learning time with your early grades children, don’t worry about “what your 1st grader should know.” Think about what he does know and what else he wants to know. Is he interested in music? Search for low cost concerts (hint: check your city orchestra’s web site for field trip opportunities), check out books and CDs about the lives of composers, let him mess around with musical instruments, listen to as many different styles of music as you possibly can.

Maybe learning about animals lights her fire. Take her to the zoo, or even just to the back yard to watch the critters. Check out books on animals from the library – and don’t limit yourself to the books written at her level. There are amazing children’s TV shows that are filled with wonderful information on animals. No curriculum required.

In addition to deeply exploring the unique interests of your children, expose them to a broad array of new and interesting experiences so that they can discover interests they never knew they had. A good place to start is to expose them to your own interests. One of the best things about having kids is that I have an excuse to pursue my interest in dinosaurs!

Getting off the “conveyor belt”

The conveyor belt curriculum of most schools by necessity asks every child to be equally mediocre in every subject.

“The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.” ~ H. L. Mencken

The aim of homeschoolers is different. We want our fish to be the best little swimmers they can be. But we’re not going to trouble ourselves if they can’t climb a tree.

There is an infinite amount of  knowledge to obtained in this life. Are you worried about gaps in your child’s education? Don’t be. There will be gaps. Aren’t there gaps in your education? There are in mine. What’s important is that I know how to fill the gaps when I need to. I was a woefully inadequate cook when I got married. One of my best meals was Kraft macaroni and cheese with frozen peas stirred in.  It was fine because my husband did most of the cooking before we had kids. But when I started staying home, it made more sense for me to prepare the food. So I learned to cook. And now I’m a pretty darn good cook, if I do say so myself.

My husband struggled with math throughout high school and college. When he got to a place in his work where he need to do higher level math, he went to Khan Academy and taught himself what he needed to know. It finally stuck because it was relevant and meaningful, and he was able to learn it on his own terms.

Many of the things we want our children to learn will be  organically in pursuit of their other interests. A child who wants to cook by himself will be more motivated to learn to read and understand fractions so that he can follow a recipe. A reluctant reader may be inspired to learn to spell so that he can search youtube for videos about his favorite video games.

Since a person cannot possibly know everything there is to know in this world, when deciding what to teach our children it makes sense to start with what lights them up. When their passions and interests are aroused, they will learn and retain so much more than they will following someone else’s agenda.

Next time we’ll examine the third R: learning based on real experiences.

To read the other posts in this series click below:

Part 1: Relax

Part 2: Learning Based on Relationships

Part 4: Real Experiences

July 23, 2013 Education Theory, Our Homeschool, Preschoolers, Rethinking the 3 R's Post a Comment

Relationship Based Learning: Part 2 in the Three R’s Series

EarlyGrades

In my last post I suggested a new set of “R’s” to guide our homeschool philosophy, particularly in the early grades.

I proposed

  • A relaxed approach
  • based on relationships
  • and real experiences.

I then encouraged us all to take a deep breath and relax.

Today, I want to think about the role of relationships in our homeschools. I want us to think about the relationships between and among the people in our homes, particularly between us as mothers and our children. I also want us to think about how our children relate to the material they are learning.

Let’s take a minute and perform a little thought experiment. Imagine you’re 5 years old. You’re going off to school for the first time and you’ve heard that your teacher is the best in the school. She’s kind and warm and funny. She’s gentle yet firm – you know your days will be peaceful. She loves kids and she loves teaching them. She respects children and encourages them to ask questions which she patiently answers. She laughs easily and her excitement for learning inspires her students’ sense of wonder.

Now imagine you’re the same small child, but you’ve heard your teacher is the meanest in school. She never smiles. She’s strict and harsh and has no patience for silly questions or nonsense. She is the quintessential schoolmarm taskmistress.

How did you feel imagining yourself meeting each teacher? Which teacher made you feel excited to be in school and to learn?

Like this thought experiment, research shows that a positive, supportive, encouraging relationship between teacher and student promotes learning. When you’re homeschooling, always remember that you are your child’s mother first. There’s a Jewish proverb stating that “one mother is worth a thousand teachers.” This is so true. You are better than your child’s teacher. You are his mother. Don’t ever let your role as his teacher diminish your role as his mother.

Don’t let learning conflicts destroy your relationship. If a lesson becomes a battle, leave it for a time until you are both calmer. Use the time to determine what the root of the problem is. Is the material too hard? Is it too boring? Is there another way to present the same idea? Is it really necessary to pursue this lesson at this time? Can you come back to the concepts in a week, a month, or even 6 months or a year?

I started phonics instruction with my oldest many, many times before we finally pursued learning to read together. I truly thought he was going to be an early reader. When he was two, he spent several days on the couch with the stomach flu. In between bouts of vomiting, he watched the Leap Frog Letter Factory over and over and over again. (This is a truly obnoxious video, but kids love it.) By the time his tummy recovered, he knew his letters and letter sounds pat. I thought for sure he’d be a precocious reader.

He wasn’t. When we started Sing, Spell, Read and Write in kindergarten, it was kind of a disaster. I tried various other programs over the next couple of years with various levels of resistance and distress. I never pushed it. I didn’t have it in me to force the issue. If he resisted too much, I’d drop it. I would ignore reading instruction for 6 months at a time and try again.

Eventually he started sounding out “environmental print,” signs  along the road, words on cereal boxes, that sort of thing. Then he decided that he could read Bears in the Night by Stan and Jan Berenstain. That was the only book he could read for about a year. Then he started trying other books, but never read more than a few words. Finally, when he was 7.5 I told him we were going to get more serious about school. We would be doing 10 minutes of reading and 10 minutes of math a day. I told him he could read anything to me he wanted for those 10 minutes. He mostly chose easy reader books and the Henry and Mudge series was his favorite.

After about 6 months of this, he announced one day, “Mama, I’m going to read the Harry Potter books.” As it happened, the next day I found the first four books at Goodwill for $.99/piece so I bought them all. And you know what? He’s reading the first book. After a couple of days of reading, he came to me and excitedly told me, “Mama! I’ve already ready two and half pages!” It’s slow going, but he’s doing it and he is so proud of himself. And he will be a much better reader by the time he finishes this book.

All told, I would say over the first 7.5 years of his life he received about 3 hours of direct phonics instruction.

I’ll talk more about how you can teach a kid to read without a phonics curriculum (I’m not anti-phonics, so don’t jump on me here!) in my post about reading. My primary point here is that it was never worth it to me to fight my son about reading. I decided that if teaching my child was going to strain or injure our relationship, I’d rather send him to school.

And I didnt’ want to send him to school.

So what can you do if you’re finding learning time to be a battle? First, you can just stop. As I said before, there’s no reason your 5 year old has to have a formal curriculum of any kind. If sitting down to “do school” is a battle, go to the park instead. Wait awhile and try again in 6 months after he’s matured a little. And then, if you need to, wait another six months and try again. Or look for a different approach. Make train tracks shaped like letters and let him puff his train along the “j” track. Draw letters and numbers in the sand. Make cookies together and count scoops as you measure. Just go to Pinterest and look around at some of the “learning to read” or “preschool math” boards and you’ll be flooded with fun ideas that you and your child will love. Life presents so many joyful learning opportunities that can bring you closer to your child – there’s no need to doggedly pursue a curriculum that creates tension and discord.

You know your child better than anyone. You know what lights his fire. You know his interests and passions. If you don’t, find out. Put aside your curriculum and expectations and just spend some time following his lead in play and see what excites and motivates him. You’ll have a much easier time teaching him if you know what makes him tick. And you will probably discover he is learning things you weren’t even aware of.

Finally, pray. Ask our Lord how to reach your children’s hearts. Ask Him what it is you need to teach your children today, this month, this year. Ask Him to reveal to you His plan and purpose for each of your children and your role in helping each to fulfill that purpose. Pray to your children’s guardian angels and baptismal saints. Ask them to intercede for you and your children regarding their educations. I have been astounded and overwhelmed  by the answers and blessings I have received when I have placed my trust in the Lord regarding challenging situations with my children. The Lord is truly good and he desires the best for you and your children. He will guide you if you ask and listen.

Your relationship with your child is the greatest educational tool you have. Don’t let your anxiety over what he “should” be learning when he’s little create a rift between you.

In the next post, I’ll look at the second relationship I mentioned above: the relationship between your children and the material they are learning.

To read the other posts in this series:

Part 1: Relax

Part 3: Your Child’s Relationship with the Material

Part 4: Real Experiences

July 19, 2013 Education Theory, Rethinking the 3 R's 5 Comments

Rethinking the Three R’s: Homeschooling the Early Grades

EarlyGrades

 

I recently had the honor of speaking at the Rocky Mountain Catholic Home Educators Conference where I gave a talk entitled Homeschooling the Early Grades: Rethinking the Three R’s. It was well received, and I thought I would share my thoughts here as well.

So here are my 3 R’s:

  • A relaxed approach
  • based on relationships and
  • real experiences.

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I was inspired to give this talk because I’ve noticed a trend recently in my various online homeschool groups where a new member will post an introduction along these lines:

“Hi! I’ll be homeschooling my 4 year old daughter next year and I know she’s young, but she really loves learning and I want to get her started and feed that eager young mind of hers. I was wondering if you could recommend a good reading and math curriculum. Also, I was looking at this logic book. Have any of you used it?”

That’s not a copy and paste, but it is accurate. Yes, someone once asked about using a logic book with their kindergartner. A friend of mine attended multiple conferences this summer in preparation of  her first year of homeschooling year. Her one and only daughter will be two in September.

When I see these parents fretting about choosing the right curriculum for their wee ones, I want to grab them by the shoulders, look them deep in the eyes and say, “Relax. Take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay.”

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It’s not a race

This post will focus on that first R. Relax. It’s not a race. There is no reason whatsoever to begin a formal curriculum of any sort with a 3-, 4-, or 5-year-old. Or even a 6- or 7-year old. Research shows that by the time they’re 11, there’s no difference in the reading ability of those who received reading instruction beginning at age 5 and those who weren’t taught until they were 7. Most of the research showing an advantage for those receiving early childhood education also shows these advantages taper off about third grade.

Meanwhile, there’s more and more research showing the clear benefits of play and exploration for children. They’re better behaved, demonstrate more pro-social behaviors, are less likely to be obese, are more creative. And they’re smarter.

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We all know that there’s a wide variety of “normal” when it comes to developmental milestones. The normal range for a baby’s first step is 9-18 months. That means a baby who walks at the late end of the range is twice as old as an early walker when he takes his first steps. And there’s nothing “wrong” with the late walker and nothing particularly extraordinary about the early walker. They’re both within the normal range.

The same is true of later cognitive milestones. Some kids meet them way earlier than others – this doesn’t necessarily make them future geniuses. Other kids meet them way later than others – again, this doesn’t mean their doomed to failure. It just means we’re all different and develop at different rates.

“A berry ripens in its own good time…and so does a child’s readiness. Just as the one needs water and sunlight, the other needs the patient reassurance of loving adults who can trust children to grow according to their own timetables.” ~ Mister Rogers

One of the brilliant things about homeschooling is that our kids don’t have to be on the conveyor belt of a traditional school. Public education in particular is based on the idea of every kid getting exactly the same thing at exactly the same time in exactly the same way. It also assumes that kids learn in tiny, predictable, incremental steps. This isn’t true. Just like your toddler suddenly had a huge language explosion after walking around with a handful of words for months, so too can your young child go from reading “Mat sat on a cat.” to reading Harry Potter seemingly overnight.

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“What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch out of a free, meandering brook.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

So if your 7-year-old hasn’t shown much interest in reading, don’t freak out. And for heaven’s sake, if your 4-year-old doesn’t want to do a cut and paste phonics work sheet, please, think twice about how important it really is. Remember, any curriculum you choose is your TOOL. It’s not your boss. You’re the boss. Follow your kid’s lead. If she wants to sit and write letters when she’s 4, then let her. Help her when she asks you. Don’t push. But if she’d rather go outside and hunt for worms and splash around in rain puddles, let her do that instead. It’s at least as good for her education, and much, much better for her long term growth and development.

My next post will look at the second R: Relationships. This includes your relationship with your child, as well as your child’s relationship to the material being learned.

To read the other posts in this series:

Part 2: Learning Based on Relationships

Part 3: Your Child’s Relationship with the Material

Part 4: Real Experiences

February 26, 2013 Education Theory, Our Homeschool, Parenting, Rethinking the 3 R's 2 Comments

Encouraging Creativity

“Hey, mom! Want to color in Cutielicious?”

Yes, I do. I love Cutielicious. It’s a super fun doodle book with just enough structure for the creatively challenged (me) and more than enough freedom for the artistically inclined (Helen). One of the best purchases I’ve ever made, it makes me happy to color in this ultra cute book with my little girl.

Usually.

“Ooooh! Let’s color the cookie page,” my little one exclaims. “Which cookie do you want to do?”

I select my cookie declaring, “I’m going to color it like one of the yummy sugar cookies with the slick pink frosting on it. I love those. I’ll try a pink circle in the middle and then color around it with tan.”*

“No. You have to color it all brown first.”

“I don’t want to color it all brown first, then it won’t look like I want it to.”

“But I want you to make it look like this one,” my little girl asserts, pointing to the sample cookie provided.

Um. That’s an ugly cookie. I don’t like the way it looks. I wanted to color it like the delicious cookie in my brain.

“Why can’t I color my cookie the way I want to color my cookie?” I ask a little petulantly.

“Because I want it to look like this one!”

“Then you can color yours like that one. I want to make mine a pink sugar cookie.” I’m a little surprised at how strongly I feel about this and how grumpy I am to have my small opportunity for creativity wrestled from me by my tyrannical daughter insisting I recreate the uninspired cookie offered as a model.

At her further insistence I copy this stupid cookie, while she criticizes my efforts.

“Those circles aren’t round enough!”

“That’s the wrong color.”

I take a deep breath and remind myself that I am a grown up, that the activity in front of me is not about my artistic (ha!) expression but about connecting and sharing time with my precious daughter. So I copied the ugly cookie.*

And then I thought about how often we suck the joy out of our children by asking them to copy the ugly cookie.

It may go something like this.

“Hey mom! Can I help you clean the bathroom?” a child asks enthusiastically while grabbing the spray bottle of homemade non-toxic cleaner.

“Sure! Here, spray right here. . .wait, no, that’s too much! No, don’t spray there, here, that’s enough. Okay now. Wait! Where are you going? I thought you wanted to help me!”

Or maybe this is more familiar.

“Mom! Look! I wrote a poem! Want to read it?”

“Sure! . . . Oh, you misspelled this word. You should put a comma here. Do you think it would be better if you. . . “

Or sometimes around here it’s:

“Mom! Can I make a cake?”

“Sure, first you need to . . . okay now . . . wait, let me just . . . good now . . . wait! I thought you were going to make a cake!”

The resentment I felt at being forced to copy that ugly cookie, the disappointment at having my joy and vision subjugated to someone else’s agenda, made me realize just how damaging it is to interrupt a child’s inspiration. Not only does it prevent their expressing their creativity, but it robs them of the motivation to act in any way. I copied that ugly cookie, but I didn’t want to and I hated every minute of it. And when I was finally allowed to create my own cookie, the joy was gone.

I’m pretty sure that had I had the freedom to create my own cookie first, I would have happily copied that ugly cookie to please my little girl. Of course, I’m a grown up. I can get over it. But every time we ask a child to copy the ugly cookie before they’re allowed to create the cookie that inspires their joy, we rob them of the opportunity to express their unique vision. We deny them the satisfaction that comes from acting on their internal motivation to create something that pleases them. Ultimately, we prevent them from learning to be self-motivated individuals who can conceive of an idea and follow through on it’s implementation without always having someone else tell them what to do and how to do it.

I’m going to try to cultivate an awareness for when I’m asking my children to copy an ugly cookie. I’d much rather see the beautiful pink-frosted sugar cookies lurking in their brains.

~~~~~

* I would like to say for the record that I can see that the “ugly cookie” I created under my daughter’s direction is, in fact, much cooler than the pink sugar cookie of my imagination. But that’s hardly the point now, is it?

September 4, 2011 Education Theory, Our Homeschool, Rethinking the 3 R's, Writing 1 Comment

Learning to Write: Zone of Proximal Development Part 2

In my last post I explained a bit about what the ZPD and scaffolding are and what scaffolding looks like when “teaching” babies how to roll over. In this post, I’ll provide a couple of examples of scaffolding the writing process.

I’d like to start by pointing out that writing is not a single skill, but rather a number of skills that come together into a finished product. In order to write, say, a thank you note that you would like your friend to read, you must 1) conceive of the idea of writing the note, 2) choose the words you need to express your gratitude, 3) decide which letters are in the words you want to write, 4) form the letters on the page, 5) plan ahead so you don’t run out of room and 6) put the words in order. I’m sure I could think of more skills involved, but we’ll leave it at that.
So that’s at least 6 things your child is doing if he’s trying to write something on a piece of paper. It’s a big task.

The first trick to scaffolding is identifying when your child is on the verge of moving up the skill ladder and determining what kind of support he needs to make that step. The next trick to scaffolding is recognizing when your child needs to just hang out and get comfortable on the rung he’s on before trying to make the next step.

For example, my son has recently learned to write. If you check the list above, he’s pretty good at steps 1 through 4. Steps 5 and 6 are still a struggle for him. Frequently throughout our day he will bring me something he has written and ask me to read it. He still writes pretty big. He hasn’t developed the fine motor skills he needs to neatly form tiny letters on the page. So he can fit two, maybe three words neatly on a page before he runs out of room. At this point, he just starts putting the letters for the words anywhere they might fit on the page. The result is something like this:

Which is fine if you have some context (that’s a drawing of Abraham Lincoln), and there’s only one word climbing up the page. But when the message is longer, it becomes a huge mess:

I have no idea what those say, though I do spot the word “the” in the second picture.

One day, feeling a bit frustrated, I told him that you have to write from top to bottom and left to right or people can’t read it and it doesn’t make sense. I wanted to show him. I wanted to have him rewrite what he’d written. He wanted to punch me in the nose.

I really should have kept my mouth shut in that situation. I wasn’t scaffolding, I was pushing. He’s not ready to move to the next step. He’s still getting comfortable with steps 1 through 4. The effect of my “help” was to make him feel incompetent and angry. I shut down all learning opportunities at that moment and replaced them with a flood of frustrated tears.

So there’s a great example of what not to do. But every once in a while my instincts are better.

My little girl is also learning to write. She’s not really “writing” as defined in the 6 step process above; she’s pretty much just forming letters on the page. Her fine motor skills are more mature than her brother’s and she is able to form letters quite small and neatly. She doesn’t know all of her letters, but she is very interested in writing her name and has picked up that “H” is the first letter of her name.

Helen had been writing “her name” for several weeks. Here’s an example:

Note that I am aware that you do not spell “Helen” HOI. But I hadn’t said anything to her about it. She’d tells me she’d written her name and I’d say, “wonderful!”

She kept practicing and made the following progression:

Note that she is practicing. She’s doing the same thing over and over. Not because I told her to. Not because she has a worksheet to complete. She’s doing it because writing her name is important to her right now. Also note that up to this point, I hadn’t given her any instruction on writing her name. We’d talked about how Henry and Helen both start with H. We’d pointed out H’s. Everything else she’d picked up just from living our daily lives.

Then one day she was no longer satisfied with the progress she was making on her own. We were at the library and while I was showing Henry how to find books using the computer, Helen requested her own scrap of paper and teeny golf pencil from the basket by the computer. She then pouted, “I don’t know how to write my name.” I asked, “Do you want me to show you?” She nodded. So I wrote her name on the piece of paper and she copied it. She has been practicing her name, again without prompting, for several days now and it now looks like this:

So in this case, the scaffolding I provided was a model for her to copy. Note that it still isn’t quite right. But it’s a lot closer than HOI. The letters aren’t in the right order, the “L” is backwards, and there’s no “N” at all (probably because she doesn’t feel up for tackling that diagonal line), but the model I gave her bumped her up to a new level of competence. My job now is to stand back and let her get comfortable at this level until she’s ready for my help to move up the next rung of the ladder.

How will I know she’s ready? More than likely it will be because she asks me. If I felt I just couldn’t hold back, I could ask her if she wants to learn to draw an “N.” Because I know she’s capable of tracing small letters on a page, I could print a handwriting worksheet for her and show her how to do it. But if I did that, I would be careful to present in a pretty nonchalant way. “Hey Helen! I put a worksheet on your writing table that shows you how to write the letter ‘N.'” And leave it at that. If she asked for help with it I would help her. If she ignored it, I wouldn’t bring it up again. I’d just leave it there.

The essence of scaffolding is waiting until a child is super ready to take the next step and offering just enough assistance to get him there. It’s holding a child’s hand as she jumps across a little stream. As opposed to pushing her across a river in a canoe. Either way she’ll reach the other side, but if she makes the leap herself, the experience will be much more rewarding.

September 3, 2011 Education Theory, Our Homeschool, Rethinking the 3 R's, Writing 1 Comment

When to Push, When to Hold Back: An Introduction to Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development Theory

Recently in my homeschool circles, there has been much discussion of when it might be appropriate to push/encourage/nudge our children. How can we discern whether a little encouragement or guidance from us will help them jump to the next level of competence, or push them over the edge of frustration?

Lev Vygotsky, the great educational theorist, posited that there exists what he called the Zone of Proximal Development, or ZPD in the educational jargon. Vygotsky believed that the ZPD is where the greatest learning occurrs. The ZPD is that area of competence just beyond a person’s current level of achievement – a level that one can reach with just a bit of the right help. He called this help “scaffolding.”

Scaffolding is something we all do more or less naturally with babies. Imagine playing on the floor with a baby who is lying on his back and rolling to his side. He’s just about to roll over. He’s almost got it. He just needs a liiiitle encouragement. You hold out a favorite toy just beyond his reach. He reeeeaches for the toy and – woop!- he rolls over. Yay! You’ve just scaffolded rolling over for the baby.

Now notice, if that baby was not yet reaching for toys, or was not yet capable of getting most of the way over on his own, or wasn’t interested in rolling or reaching at that moment, your efforts would have been fruitless.


Parents naturally scaffold new walkers. photo credit: sean dreilinger via photo pin cc/caption]

Again, this comes naturally for most of us when we’re working with babies. But it is much less intuitive when we’re working with older children. With older children who have more or less mastered the art of walking and talking, we tend to push a little harder. If a 5 year old can’t write his name, we may feel compelled to put a pen in his hand and use our hand over his hand to walk him through the steps. This isn’t scaffolding. I’m not sure what I would call it, but it isn’t scaffolding.

Our tendency to want to push to this extent comes in large part from a system of schooling that has tricked us into thinking that all kids need to learn the same skills at the same time and at the same rate in order to be at “grade level.” If a 5 year old can’t write his name, he is “behind” and we must push him to “catch up.”

Nah. The problem with this kind of pushing is that it makes learning harder than it has to be. I could start coaching a baby on rolling over from the day he comes home from the hospital, but he’s probably not going to roll over any sooner than if I’d just waited until he was ready. But in the mean time, I may make him think that this rolling over business is a lot of stupid hard work that he’s not really interested in doing.

Okay. So what does scaffolding look like beyond the babyhood? A big question that keeps popping up in my circles, and one I’ve written about before, is teaching writing. I’m not sure why we’re so preoccupied with writing, but it seems that we are. So in my next post I will look at what scaffolding looks like when teaching a kid to write.

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